


That's Why iii Love the Moon

by slapshots



Category: Riverdale (TV 2017)
Genre: Coming of Age, F/M, Friends to Lovers, Gang Violence, Lovers To Enemies, Mob Wars, The Mantles are a mob family, Very AU, WHO KNOWS? IT'S GONNA BE WILD!, reggie has ptsd
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-04-29
Updated: 2018-04-29
Packaged: 2019-04-29 19:30:48
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,258
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14479617
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/slapshots/pseuds/slapshots
Summary: The first time Reggie saw his dad kill someone, he was eight.





	That's Why iii Love the Moon

**Author's Note:**

> wow a new story! ok kids! it's massive au, there'll be violence, there'll be nastiness, there'll be fights and love and sex and more fights and so much angst and i just really hope y'all enjoy! the title is from 'why iii love the moon' by phony ppl. just go into this blind, guys, have FAITH because i'm going into this blind. i have no idea where this is going, for real.

The first time Reggie saw his dad kill someone, he was eight.

Their driver, Paul, had picked Reggie up from baseball practice. He did his homework in the kitchen, his feet dangling off the barstool at the island counter as the family chef, Francesca, prepared his favorite meal for dinner: macaroni and cheese with bits of bacon and bread crumbs. He ate it with a glass of water and got cheese sauce on his math homework. He wiped it off, but some of the printed ink went along with it. He hopped off the barstool once he was done eating, thanking Francesca, and he pulled his homework off the counter before heading up the stairs to the top floor. He padded down the hallway and reached for the door of his father’s office, twisting it and pushing it open.

There was a quick, almost-silent pop, followed by something warm hitting Reggie’s face and arms, ending with a dull _thump_ as something heavy hit the ground.

Reggie blinked.

Red soaked into his socks on the hardwood flooring.

Reggie’s father dropped the gun and ran to his side. He picked Reggie up, carrying him out of the office as he barked orders at his men to clean up the mess. Reggie felt himself start to shake and cry as he peed himself, and his father set him down in the bathtub to clean him up, shushing quietly, humming softly to calm Reggie down.

The crying stopped as Reggie sat in the tub, letting his dad shampoo his hair, care for him, and he emotionlessly and robotically changed into pyjamas, clinging onto his father as he carried him off to bed, only letting go once he was tucked in.

Ricky Mantle kissed his son on the forehead and placed a hand on his chest.

“You’re a Family man, now, Reggie. You understand that?”

He didn’t.

“You’re going to start learning about the family business tomorrow.”

He thought the family business was cars.

-

On top of being their driver, Reggie found out that Paul was his father’s right-hand man and most trusted employee. Reggie’s personal caretaker. 

The family business, as it turned out, was land, money laundering, and the manufacturing and distribution of drugs.

Ricky Mantle wasn’t a good person, and Reggie was quick to figure that out. But he was his father, and Reggie wanted nothing more than for him to be proud of him, so he shut his mouth and sat in on meetings and tried to absorb as much as he could, but it wasn’t without consequence.

Reggie had a temper that was hard for him to control. He had a smart mouth and a lack of filter and, while a normal childhood outside of the house was encouraged by his parents, being around grown men with side arms talking business and money took its toll on the boy.

The first time Reggie drew another person’s blood, he was ten.

A middle schooler tried to rough him up, so Reggie stabbed him in the leg with a pen. Ricky laughed about it while his mother, Victoria, blamed his violence on him.  
Paul suggested a change of scenery, for Reggie’s sake.

There was a hiccup in the business, from the little that Reggie could understand at such a young age. The security around the house doubled, but the new faces never lasted. Paul was extra tense. His father was barely around. Reggie watched Paul be carried in, a trail of blood dotting the floors, bringing back suppressed memories from that time Reggie saw a brain explode.

Reggie was twelve by the time Victoria finally convinced Ricky that Manhattan was too much for Reggie and that, for Reggie’s formative years through middle and high school, they needed to think smaller.

“Think of your son!” Reggie heard his mother’s shrill shout through the walls of his father’s office. “Riverdale is _not_ that far away, Ricky. It’s a blank slate, you can grow out there, it opens up the possibility of _Canada_ for you. This is not the environment for Reggie to grow up in. He’ll be in jail by the time he’s sixteen if he stays here.”

“She’s right,” Paul’s voice came. “Ricky, consider it.”

Reggie wondered if he’d get a say. As footsteps approached the door, Reggie scrambled to head back down the stairs and dove under his sheets, kicking around to make it seem like he had been asleep for a while and curled up and closed his eyes.

His door opened and his bed dipped and he felt the rough, calloused hand of his father brush over his cheek and through his hair.

“We’re moving, son,” he said. “I’m going to need you to forget some things when we do.” 

-

Riverdale was a small town, but Reggie could immediately see the appeal in it. Desperate for Reggie to have a normal teen life, once eighth grade started, Victoria enrolled him in all the extracurriculars she could and he excelled. He was driven, he was strong, he was everything Victoria and Ricky had hoped for him to be, but there was that temper that flared up every now and then that kept Reggie in trouble.

There was one day after a basketball game that they had lost by two. The entire team kept quiet as Reggie threw basketballs around the locker room, yelling at everyone that they needed to _do better_ , _be better_ , that they were _dragging him down_. The boys filed out, slumped over and defeated, and Reggie sat by his locker, staring at the ground. He felt a big hand on his shoulder and looked up to see one of his classmates, brows furrowed.

“You should, uh, chill, man. It’s not even playoffs yet. You ever play football?”

“No,” Reggie said, frowning.

“You should try football. Maybe it’ll help if you get to hit something.”

“Help what?” Reggie asked.

“Your shitty temper,” the kid said with a grin.

“That’s a bad word,” Reggie said.

“You don’t get anywhere being good all the time. Football, kid. Give it a shot.”

“Hey, what’s your name?”

“Moose Mason.”

“Moose Mason? Get fucked.”

Reggie convinced his mom to let him try out for the spring football team, and Reggie _loved_ it. Reggie loved it so much that he kicked an opposing team’s quarterback in the leg, shattering his knee so he could grab the fumble and take it home.

-

“You never bring me to meetings anymore,” Reggie brought up one day as he ate breakfast, and Ricky looked up from his phone with a heavy sigh, leaning his elbows on the table.

“Your mother doesn’t want you in any meetings until you’re eighteen.”

“That’s in five years.”

“And you’ll wait. Patiently and quietly.”

Francesca took Reggie’s empty plate away and Paul stepped into the kitchen to call Reggie to the car for his first day of high school.

“Why couldn’t I go to Riverside High?” Reggie grumbled as he looked out the window. “None of my friends went to Riverdale.”

“What friends?” Paul said coolly, smirking, and Reggie gave him a hard look, furrowing his brows.

“Don’t make me fire you,” he said, and Paul laughed at his empty threat.

“Look, you gotta behave. No more shattering knee caps, no more stabbing kids with writing utensils, no setting up an underground gambling club in which you pit insects against spiders - _yes_ , Reggie, we all heard about that.”

“What else am I supposed to do with a useless fifteen-minute break between classes?” Reggie grumbled.

“Fuckin’ eat a bag of chips, Reggie. Now get out of the car and stay out of trouble.”

He climbed out of the car and gave Paul the middle finger before tugging on the straps of his backpack, looking up at the building. He took a deep breath and walked tall, taking in the sights around him, nodding at the few familiar faces, before he found himself in front of the office to get his schedule from the secretary.

He dragged himself to homeroom when the bell rang and sat down at the back of the class behind a kid with messy red hair and a kid with greasy black hair.

Didn’t he know how to shower?

“You’re Reginald Mantle, right? From Riverside Middle School?” the red head asked, swiveling around in his seat to look at him. Reggie eyed his friendly smile warily.

“Yeah,” he said.

“We played each other in basketball last year. You trying out for the team here? You’re pretty good, man.”

“Yeah, maybe. Thanks.”

The bell rang and Reggie picked up his bag again, slinging it over his shoulder, leaving the classroom.

“I’ll catch you later, Jug. Hey, don’t you have a locker?” the red head called out after him, and he heard quick footsteps as he caught up with him. “Let me look at your class schedule. Your locker should be there.”

“Hey, when are football tryouts?” Reggie asked as the guy unfolded his class schedule and lead him around to his locker.

“Football teams have been made already. Tryouts were in the summer. Here’s your locker,” he said, tapping the metal door and smiling.

“So… what if you didn’t know about tryouts? No room for anyone else?”

“I don’t think so, man. Especially because you’re new and nobody knows you, you know?”

“When is the next practice?” Reggie asked as he got his locker open and shrugged his bag into it, taking out a notebook and pencil for his next class.

“After school.”

“Are you on the team?”

“Yeah, man, wide receiver.”

“What’s your name?”

“Archie Andrews.” Reggie held up his hand and Archie shook it firmly, that same friendly smile in place. Reggie smiled back, forced and with a bit of a bite.

Reggie walked by the football field after school and kept an eye out for Archie and the quarterback. He spotted the latter, dropped his bag, and took off his sunglasses. The moment the ball snapped back to the QB, Reggie sprinted out onto the field and took the QB down, picked up the ball, and threw a perfect pass to Archie eighty yards away. He picked his legs up to dodge a tackle from one of the other guys on the team and placed his hand on his helmet, forcing his face down onto the grass as he touched back down and lifted his hand to shake the coach’s hand.

“I’m Reggie Mantle and I’m on the team, coach.”

Archie took off his helmet and couldn’t help the grin that stretched over his face, nodding at Reggie.

-

Freshman and Sophomore year at Riverdale High weren’t so bad, and for the first time, Reggie allowed himself to have friends that he felt could last the whole three years. Archie Andrews was a goody-goody, but there was something to him that spoke to Reggie. A fierceness and competitiveness that he enjoyed drawing out of him. Jughead Jones was a nerd, no doubt about that, but he and Archie were a package deal, and Jughead was an okay guy, so Reggie was chill with him. Moose Mason tolerated Reggie, and that was enough. Betty Cooper was a god damn babe. She’d give in to him, eventually.

“Reggie, your father needs to see you in his office,” Paul said to him as he was about to head out the door to meet Archie and Jughead, and Reggie frowned.

“His office?” he repeated, and Paul sighed quietly and nodded his head. Reggie hesitated before dropping his bag and headed up the stairs, knocking first, then pushed the door open.

“Reggie,” his father said, standing up from his desk, and a man and a young girl both turned in their chairs to look his way. “You remember the Lodge family?”

He looked at the father, a familiar face. A face he could place in the office that time his dad blew a guy’s head off.

“Hiram Lodge from Lodge Industries,” Reggie said after a few beats of silence, and he walked over and shook his hand, firm and steady.

“That’s a good handshake, Reggie. It’s nice to see you,” Hiram said with a smile, putting a hand on his shoulder. “And you remember my daughter, Veronica? She’ll be attending Riverdale High with you in the fall. You two were quite close, used to have playdates while your father and I attended business. _Mija_?”

“I actually _cried_ when you moved away,” Veronica laughed, leaning in to hug him, and Reggie froze as her arms circled around him, struggling to remember any part of their childhood together. “It’s so good to see you again! You’re so tall!”

“And you’re… so… short,” Reggie said, leaning back to look down at her. Veronica made a face at him. “And beautiful!” he added, then looked at Hiram, “respectfully, sir.” In the background, he could see his father close his eyes and drop his head with a sigh.

“Right, well. Maybe you can show Veronica around while your father and I attend to some business,” Hiram said, giving Reggie a wink, and he sat back down without another word.

“Bye, daddy!” Veronica said in a sing-song voice, and she kissed him on the cheek before linking arms with Reggie and all but skipping out of the office. “Riverdale is so pretty! And green! I love it so much. It reminds me of summer at the lake house.”

“Look, Veronica, I’m heading out to hang out with some guys.”

“Great! Don’t worry, I’m sociable, talkative, and can handle myself,” Veronica said with a coy smile, nudging Reggie with her elbow.

Ugh.


End file.
